So I ordered a 32" RCA from Wal Mart it arrived in a couple days, but when I turned it on there was this round halo then spiderweb across the screen, lines up and down and side to side. So today I took it back to Wally World gave it back and got an Emerson 39" which I am now watching TV on. So after years of fighting the new tech I finally broke down and upgraded. There is nothing wrong with my old RCA, it works fine the tubes still work, the CRT is still good, it does not have HD, so I can't get those channels, but its still a good picture. So its now been demoted to the Bed Room where I will most likely never watch it, and the new one is playing a football game, when you can see a loose thread on a uniform, you start to understand what HD means.

So if any of you are thinking new TV, HDTV go big.

River

39 inch is a nice size for an HDTV ...

There are really nice looking pictures of many shows.

Football - you get to see footprints in the grass

Hockey (when they play it) you can read numbers on uniforms.

golf - you can actually see the effing little ball in the air

Lots of good shows with HD pictures that will look the same but when you really look, have more detail and that counts for looking real.

Some modern TV's, I found out from a guy at Radio Shack, are literally RUINED if they are turned upside down or laid flat.

In fact, in talking to someone I know at Wal-mart, they do this intentionally just to drive people nuts.

So when the TV box says "This End Up", they're not kidding.

Its so crisp and sharp its giving me a headache or maybe its because I have it to loud. All I know is that I am really liking this.

River

Mine is great except that it is too bright to suit me.

I have turned down the brightness a couple of times

but still if the lights are low it is annoying.

Also, where I live I can get some stations on both

cable and by direct antenna, direct is a lot better.

By the way, the sound of many HDTV's is not the greatest. They use the flattest of speakers and sometimes awfully small configurations. If you can get a fiber-optic feed from your cable box and an amplifier that takes a fiber optic input, you will have better sound.

I have a great Pioneer receiver and two nice BOSE speakers.That's more than enough to shake the house if I want. I get that sound on cable.

My Blu-Ray player didn't have fiber optic sound so it uses the HDTV speakers (I have an LG 36" HDTV) and when I play my Blu-Ray discs of HARRY POTTER #7 (Deathly Hallows part 1) for instance, I don't hear the outdoor sounds of crickets, footsteps and birds when they are camping out of the HDTV that I hear when I listen to the same movie on Cable with the fiber optic sound. This is nice until they blast out a commercial or explosions start going off. Then you can bust your eardrums at the dynamic range possible. That's why all those 5.1 and 7.1 speaker systems use small speakers. It doesn't take huge speakers to shake the walls today.

Recommend

Sharp Aquos

LED / LCD

with the NON REFLECTIVE Screen

Sharp is the only one to make a non reflective screen and it reduces the contrast ratio statistic.

They also make the standard reflective screen.

I get complements on the 3D look of the picture in HD mode.

TV stores always have the TV's in and ideal viewing situation.

Homes in my n'hood have a long wall of windows. I was at a neighbors with a Sony on one side of a chimney

and the non reflective screen Sharp on the other. Big Big diff.

Watch Internet TV & Movies with an HDMI from c'puter to flat screen. Better then PC input option.

Glad you got rid of the 32" River, it is smaller then the ole 27" in screen space.

Best Viewing.

White halos,patches, dots,or stains on LCD monitors are fabrication defects known as LCD Mura. Its less common than a stuck or dead pixel.

There two types of mura. White clouding and dark mura.I don't mind white mura up to a point bc I can only see it on a intensely bright white background.And background needs to be still. However dark mura is fucking annoying. It's when you see light passing through very dark backgrounds.